560 



a small idea of what is being done now, but there are a great many 

 swindles in connection with it, labour on the whole is scarce. In 

 some districts it is better than others, at my own places I pay 80.50 

 Mexican per day but we try and do all the work by task which is 

 much more satisfactory, transport is another question that prohibits 

 men starting plantations far away from the main roads and navig- 

 able rivers. 



I am going down to the hot country soon, to the Northern end of 

 the State of Chiapas close to San Juan Baptista and if you care for 

 further local information I shall be pleased to give it you, the ad- 

 dress at the head of this will allways find me and my letters are 

 forwarded from the City to wherever I am at the moment ; we think 

 that Mexico will show up very well in a few years in the rubber 

 market but naturally we are prejudiced, we tap after the tree is 6 

 years old and every tree should give I h pounds of dried rubber 

 in the season, not milk, and we plant as much as possible in the 

 open and not under shade having found by experience that the shade 

 brings up the sapling very quickly but very thin and with no bran- 

 ches at all, while in the open the tree begins to put out branches 

 from the beginning and is a nice healthy looking tree after it has 

 passed the first year in its definite place in the plantation. 



Yours truly. 



J. V. Brexchley. 



RAINFALL IN SINGAPORE 



by A. Knight. 



Dear Sir, — I understood you to say that you arrived here in 

 1888, and that this was the driest year since. It so happens that 

 1888 was itself one of the driest years on record. 1 his is a list of 

 the 7 dry years — i.e. in which the rainfall was under 80 inches — since 

 I first kept a complete record : — 



1868. 75.55 1885. 67.32 



1872. 75.30 1888. 65.56 



1877- 58.37 l8 96- 74-07 



1883. 70.14 



The first is my own record at Mount Pleasant. The others are 

 from the official returns, which commenced to be published, though 

 not in their present complete form, for 1871. These figures repre- 

 sent the average for each year of the returns from the various sta- 

 tions in Singapore, but these are taken as correct without examina- 

 tion. In 1877 there is clear evidence that some of them were in- 

 complete, and the true average would probably be about 65 inches. 



